Modern consumers have a plethora of choices when selecting products to purchase. When shopping online for a particular type of item, consumers often have a general idea of what they want, but often would like to drill down into subcategories. For example, a search for a television (TV) can yield thousands of products. Vertical search engines generally have a notion of grouping products. For example, a search portal on an eCommerce website can include subcategories, such as subcategories of “LCD,” “LED,” and “Plasma” for the TV search. These subcategories can highlight relevant subcategories of products, summarize matching products, and/or enhance user experience, such as by assisting consumers to more easily and/or rapidly see products that are relevant to their interests. Selection of featured subcategories is typically done manually by merchants or product experts. These subcategories can help consumers and are often among the most commonly selected portions of search results web pages.
It can be expensive for merchants and/or product experts to manually generate and/or update featured subcategories, especially for websites with large product repositories and/or frequent changes in product inventory and/or consumer shopping behaviors. Past attempts at automated creation of featured subcategories have involved automated selection of attribute values to be used as subcategories, but have nonetheless required merchants and/or product experts to manually select one or more relevant product attributes to be used for the automated attribute-value selection. For example, the merchant would manually select “display technology” as a relevant selection attribute for TVs prior to the automated selection of the “LCD,” “LED,” and “Plasma” attribute values as featured subcategories. This manual selection can be expensive.
For simplicity and clarity of illustration, the drawing figures illustrate the general manner of construction, and descriptions and details of well-known features and techniques may be omitted to avoid unnecessarily obscuring the present disclosure. Additionally, elements in the drawing figures are not necessarily drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help improve understanding of embodiments of the present disclosure. The same reference numerals in different figures denote the same elements.
The terms “first,” “second,” “third,” “fourth,” and the like in the description and in the claims, if any, are used for distinguishing between similar elements and not necessarily for describing a particular sequential or chronological order. It is to be understood that the terms so used are interchangeable under appropriate circumstances such that the embodiments described herein are, for example, capable of operation in sequences other than those illustrated or otherwise described herein. Furthermore, the terms “include,” and “have,” and any variations thereof, are intended to cover a non-exclusive inclusion, such that a process, method, system, article, device, or apparatus that comprises a list of elements is not necessarily limited to those elements, but may include other elements not expressly listed or inherent to such process, method, system, article, device, or apparatus.
The terms “left,” “right,” “front,” “back,” “top,” “bottom,” “over,” “under,” and the like in the description and in the claims, if any, are used for descriptive purposes and not necessarily for describing permanent relative positions. It is to be understood that the terms so used are interchangeable under appropriate circumstances such that the embodiments of the apparatus, methods, and/or articles of manufacture described herein are, for example, capable of operation in other orientations than those illustrated or otherwise described herein.
The terms “couple,” “coupled,” “couples,” “coupling,” and the like should be broadly understood and refer to connecting two or more elements mechanically and/or otherwise. Two or more electrical elements may be electrically coupled together, but not be mechanically or otherwise coupled together. Coupling may be for any length of time, e.g., permanent or semi-permanent or only for an instant. “Electrical coupling” and the like should be broadly understood and include electrical coupling of all types. The absence of the word “removably,” “removable,” and the like near the word “coupled,” and the like does not mean that the coupling, etc. in question is or is not removable.
As defined herein, two or more elements are “integral” if they are comprised of the same piece of material. As defined herein, two or more elements are “non-integral” if each is comprised of a different piece of material.
As defined herein, “approximately” can, in some embodiments, mean within plus or minus ten percent of the stated value. In other embodiments, “approximately” can mean within plus or minus five percent of the stated value. In further embodiments, “approximately” can mean within plus or minus three percent of the stated value. In yet other embodiments, “approximately” can mean within plus or minus one percent of the stated value.